stone; there are several ponderous masses remaining, but that part of the inscription which is on them is the most defaced. I will try, however, when I have leisure, to copy such parts as are at all capable of being taken off, but the stone is so rough that this will be difficult to accomplish. NOTE ON THE FOREGOING. Col. Low's inscription possesses, I think, sufficient interest to warrant the insertion of a reduced facsimile in the Journal, and I give it accordingly in Plate X. There is no difficulty in recognising in the first two lines the well-known formula Ye dharmma hetu prabhavá, &c.; but, if I am not mistaken, it is in a form of the Sanskrit alphabet much older than any in which it has been discovered elsewhere. We have in the Museum-thanks to the zeal of Capt. Kittoe-a goodly assortment of Buddhist sculptures from Behar, containing these verses, mostly in the Kutila modification of the Sanskrit character, which belongs to the tenth century of the Christian era; while that of Col. Low's inscription corresponds very closely with the alphabet assigned to the fifth century in Prinsep's palæographic table (J. A. Š. vol. vii, pl. xiii.). Another point of interest in Col. Low's inscription is the substitution of a different couplet for that which usually follows the lines above alluded to. Mr. Hodgson long ago remarked * that there is no necessary connection between the two couplets; and Prinsep stated,† on the authority of Ratna Pála, that another series of verses follows the Ye dharmmâ, &c., in the daily service of the temples in Ceylon. In the expectation that the lines in Col. Low's inscription would prove to be those of the Ceylon ritual, I sent for Ratna Pàla and showed him my transcription; but he seemed to have forgotten all about the matter, aud was unable to supply me from memory with the verses referred to, or to recognise their identity with those of the inscription. The subjoined is a transcript of the verses in the Deva-nagari character: ये धर्म्मा हेतुप्रभवा तेषां हेतु तथागता "Whatever moral actions arise from cause, the cause of them has been explained by Tathagata. What is the check to these actions is thus set forth by the great Sramana. Vice promotes action, and action is the cause of transmigration. He who, through knowledge, performs no action, is not subject to its effects." *J. A. S. vol. iv. p. 211. † Ibid. p. 138. It will be observed that the first line of the latter couplet is identical with one in an inscription from the same neighbourhood published in the July number of the last volume of the Journal. On the subject of the doctrine here propounded Rajendralál hands me the following note: "This is but another version of the maxim inculcated by Krishna and other Vedantic preachers on the uselessness of Karma (religious action originating in the hope of recompense) as a means of salvation. The Hindu sages, however, maintain "rajoguna" (the quality of passion) and not "tamas" (darkness or vice) to be the cause of transmigration; but as the consequences of both rajas and tamas are borne in inferior states of existence, which necessarily imply repeated birth, the disagreement is not of any great importance. "J. W. L.” [Professor Kern, of Leiden, who has made the Sanskrit inscriptions found in the peninsula of Malacca the subject of a searching investigation, in a paper printed in the "Verslagen en Mededeelingen der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen," Afdeeling Letterkunde, 3de Reeks, Deel 1 (1883), restores the Keddah inscription as follows:— Ye dharmmâ hetuprabhavâ teshâ(m) hetu(m) Tathagato (hy avadat ?) ajñânâc cîyate karma janmanaḥ karma kâraṇam jñânân na kriyate karmma karmâbhâvâ(n) na jâyate. Of the second couplet-the first being the well-known Buddhistic formulahe proposes the following translation:" Through ignorance, karma (i.e., the sum of good and bad actions which is the cause of a man's being subject to constant transmigration) is accumulated; karma is the cause that man is born again. From knowledge it arises that man no longer produces karma, and it follows from the absence of karma that man is not born again." The first part of the second couplet appears also in the inscription in Province Wellesley, which, besides, contains the words, "Mahânâvika Buddhaguptasya Raktamṛittikâvâsa (sya dânam)," (the gift of) the great ship-owner Buddhagupta, an inhabitant at Raktamṛittikâ, or Red-earth, which place Kern identifies with a seaport of that name on the Siamese coast, mentioned by Groeneveldt in "Verhandelingen van het Bat. Gen." vol. xxxix. pt. i. pp. 82, 101, 122. Though both inscriptions differ from one another in their type, he is inclined to assign both of them to about the year 400 A.D. The other inscriptions are too fragmentary to yield any palpable result. Kern sees no objection to the estimate which Capt. Begbie has above given concerning their comparatively late date. These inscriptions confirm in a remarkable manner the conclusions to which the recent decipherments, by Barth, Bergaigne, Senart, and Kern, of the Cambodian inscriptions, inevitably tend-viz., that Buddhism came to the peninsula and Camboja, not from Ceylon, but from regions on the coasts of India where the so-called northern type of that religion was current.] 235 XXIII. A NOTICE OF THE ALPHABETS OF THE Translated from the "Informe sobre el Estado de las Islas Filipinas,” of Don SINIBALDO DE MAS (Madrid, January 1843. Vol. I. p. 25) by HENRY PIDDINGTON, Sub-Secretary, Asiatic Society. WITH A PLATE. ["Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal," vol. xiv. p. 603.] THE Indians were not strangers to the art of reading and writing. I give (fig. 1 of the annexed plate) some alphabets of different provinces which I have procured. It will be seen at once that they have all a common origin, or rather that they are one and the same. The little communication amongst these people for many years or ages, introduced alterations in their caligraphy as in their language, which was also probably at first but one stock. Father Juan Francisco de San Antonio says that they write like the Chinese, in perpendicular lines, and this error was copied by Father Martinez Zuniga, M. Le Gentil, and others who have written on the Philippines. Nevertheless, by documents which I have had in my possession, particularly from the archives of the convent of St. Augustin in Manilla, I have ascertained that it is read from left to right, like our own. In fig. 2 is represented a fragment of a transfer of landed property, written in Bulacan in 1652, on Chinese writing-paper. And in fig. 3, two signatures, with their equivalent renderings of the names, in our characters. To this same family of written characters would appear to belong (fig. 4) an inscription cut on a plank, which was found in 1837, by a detachment of troops, in the mountains inhabited by the savage tribes called Igorrotes. But withal, no books nor any kind of literature in this character are to be met with, except a few amatory verses written in a highly hyperbolical style, and hardly intelligible. It would appear that their letters partook of this Oriental redundancy.1 1 [See above, p. 117, note 2.] |